Designing for the Social Web: the Book

Has it really been nine months? Last August, when I decided to go out on my own and start Bokardo Design, I also began writing a book on a new aspect of design that I called “social design”. Social design was the term I used when thinking about and designing for the social interactions between […]

Has it really been nine months?

Last August, when I decided to go out on my own and start Bokardo Design, I also began writing a book on a new aspect of design that I called “social design”. Social design was the term I used when thinking about and designing for the social interactions between people using software. It was clear to me that web sites and applications were “going social”, meaning that they were realizing that improving the interactions between their audience was key to their ongoing success, not just having conversations with the audience themselves. I decided to write a book about this area, with a focus on tying social psychology research with actual design practice.

The result is Designing for the Social Web, now available from New Riders and other merchants such as Amazon. The book is 200 pages long, chock-full of screenshots of interfaces, and peppered with social psychology tidbits.

Here’s the chapter outline:

The Rise of the Social Web

A Framework for Social Web Design

Authentic Conversations

Design for Sign-up

Design for Ongoing Participation

Design for Collective Intelligence

Design for Sharing

The Funnel Analysis

In the coming days I’ll be exploring the book in-depth, going through the most important factors in social design, giving away free chapters, and publishing bits that I wrote after the book which could have easily been included in it.

I see this book as just the beginning of the conversation. The fields of design and psychology are so vast, we can’t possibly imagine the infinite ways they’ll inform each other going forward.